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Londontown (EP)

The album starts with a track called ‘The Conversation’ which is basically about a guy being told by a girl the various things she is looking for in life, relationships, whatever and he’s really just not buying it. It’s like someone saying something to you but their actions tell a completely different story. But even though it’s supposed to be a two-sided conversation it is actually only the man telling the story. He mimics or mocks the voice of his lover and then answers in his own. It’s a little odd, perhaps in a Norman Bates kind of way but these kinds of conversations tend to go round and round in your head until you eventually either throw it all out or you go completely insane! In the end he comes to the rather anti-social resolution that in order to survive it’s better to just not love at all. Why face all that hurt, all the pain and confusion that so often comes from loving someone as he finally declares: “Close your heart, close your mind, close your eyes, it’s safer there!” That attitude does defeat the purpose of fully experiencing life though, so I don’t recommend it, although it does seem like a viable option every now and then.

The second track is an instrumental entitled ‘Rats And Tubes’ which was what it felt like when traveling in the tubes in London. I really did feel like a rat so the track is mostly distorted and eerie ’cause that’s exactly what it felt like at the time, for me at least!

Track three ‘Gemma (My Girl)’ was great fun to record. It’s kind of ’60s in a way. I remember I stayed up late that night and kept singing the vocals over and over again because I really wanted to convey some degree of desperation to the words. It couldn’t just be ‘I love you and everthing is all right, blah blah blah…’ It had to convey a sense of anxiety and desperation that often goes hand in hand with some relationships. ‘You know, I’m so into you but you don’t really seem to be that into me but I’m begging you to love me nonetheless.’ It’s a completely selfish idea actually but I think a lot of people can relate to it. I guess a lot of relationships are like that, sadly. You have this preposterous idea that you could actually change a person or make them fall in love with you but in actual fact it’s such a tasteless disregard for their unique personality, their essence. It’s disrespectful.

‘Late Night Hustle’ is just my take on night life. Actually after the night life, you know when you’re going back home and things just look ‘different’ somehow. I don’t know, I can’t really explain it adequately. It’s just a feeling I get sometimes.

Track five is another instrumental called ‘Heart Beat’ which starts off kind of slow and then goes into a completely different direction towards the end. It was a satisfying piece to write.

The final track ‘Londontown Finale’ was actually the first piece I wrote for the album. It’s kind of ‘churchy’ in a way. Somehow it makes me think of the Nick Drake song ‘At The Chime Of A City Clock’, one of his songs from his ‘Bryter Layter’ album which was incidentally HIS ode, if you will to city life, London in particular. Not that there are any lyrics to ‘Londontown Finale’, it’s the sound of some of the keyboards that makes me think of a clock chiming somewhere in the city. You hear it floating through the air, but you can’t actually see where it’s coming from.